


Forget Me Not

by 13thDoctor



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Civil War, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 22:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6773275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13thDoctor/pseuds/13thDoctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky was haunted by Steve’s corpse almost as much as Steve’s hands on his face before their lips connected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget Me Not

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sort of fix-it fic for the Easter Egg ending where Bucky goes back under. As always, kudos and comments--even if you just want to discuss the movie--are much appreciated. My ask box on tumblr (daughtersofthanos) is always open for prompts! Thank you and enjoy!

James Buchanan Barnes sat on the clinical white table of Wakanda’s hospital room and tried not to remember the ice. He tried not to remember the pulses of electricity and the words that eclipsed his mind. The bruises and blood and battles and bodies. Those piled up in his brain, a grotesque mountain of guilt and darkness. He knew every detail of every face, and his daily soundtrack was the chorus of their pleas or screams. Smiling grimly at the artificially lit chamber—all clean, pristine, so unlike his complex and brutal prison of before—he knew it would be the only way to silence the voices.

One particular voice spoke quietly from beside him. It was the one he wished would remain on repeat for eternity. He had held onto that voice, his single sustenance in a world starved of sanity and softness.

“Are you sure about this?” Steve Rogers asked.

Bucky watched his fingers drum the tabletop, and he wished he could slide their hands together. Each calloused digit was a reminder of the scars they received when apart. Hard years of separation. Of coldness. Bucky wanted to regain each with a vengeance, but not when he could barely collect a thought without violence. A thought of his own was a rare commodity these years.

The thought of Steve Rogers’ lips, though--he was almost positive that was his own.

Perhaps it was his runaway imagination. It had grown as unrestrained as the primal man he had become after Hydra fell. Stringing together coherent recollections was like catching knives point-first. Yet somehow, amidst all the broken bones and firing guns, Steve Rogers’ kiss made it through. Fragmented, mere scents and sounds more than anything else, it was still an anchor. And he wasn’t certain it was real.

Bucky assured Steve that cryo-freeze was the smartest call. If the Winter Soldier still prevailed, if agents still sought that human weapon, he was merely a liability. When Steve met his eyes, he knew the Captain could see him remembering the marks he’d left on that forgiving face during his final mission. Fractured bones that would never quite heal and veins pumped with intravenous antibiotics to keep America’s favorite science experiment alive were the Winter Soldier’s legacy.

Bucky was haunted by Steve’s corpse almost as much as Steve’s hands on his face before their lips connected.

So, not real.

He sighed and grimaced and focused on steadying his pulse. Why would Captain America, patriot and war hero, ever want a broken thing like him? He recounted his confession to Steve, when he told him he was unsure if he was worth so much trouble and calamity. Hydra had made him attempt to beat the life out of the Brooklyn boy he loved. Going back under would not change that, but it would make sure it never happened again.

“What are you thinking?”

 _That I’ll miss your eyes._ “That this is the best option.”

“You said that already.” He chuckled. Bucky tried not to stare at the lines the sound made on his face. “Don’t you lie to me, jerk. I know you.”

 _That’s the problem._ Bucky swallowed and looked away. Steve’s soft gaze was fire on his skin. Skin used for breaking, battering. He closed his eyes.

Suddenly Steve was much closer. His brain didn’t so much follow the movement as it did register it at the last second. His shoulder throbbed where his metal arm used to be, his training telling his muscles to react instinctively and block the intrusion. No one had been this close to him—except in a fight—for more years than he cared to count.

And he was _so warm._ So alive and present, summer crowding into winter’s side, sweet breath ghosting over his neck. His hands were in his pockets. Bucky wondered if he would hold him and his heart jumped. The way he reacted to his proximity meant it had to be real.

_Real real real real real real real._

Speaking quietly so the nurse could not hear him, Steve began, “Do you remember that time we spent the night on your roof, watching the stars?” He paused for a beat and searched Bucky’s face for some sort of recognition.

 _The smell of smoke and sweat, the sound of cars and children._ “The summer before I enlisted.”

Pleased, Steve smiled, and his voice was stronger when he continued. “You thought I was sick because I was shaking and stuttering so much.”

“You were always sick.”

Steve acquiesced with a blithe grin. It seemed so ironic now, thinking of Captain America as some ailing, impoverished kid. “I wasn’t then,” he replied, and laughed when Bucky eyed him with disbelief. “No, I swear! Just… just try to picture it.”

Catching knives. He grasped at them and felt pricks of pain, but he held on with all his might. “Okay.” It was more of an exhale than a word.

“And do you remember when I finally got myself together, I leaned close to you and you thought I was cold? And you—”

Tripping over his words in earnest, heart pounding, Bucky cut him off. “I wrapped my arms around your neck—”

“And I kissed you,” Steve said.

He pressed their foreheads together while he allowed the story to settle in the air around them. Bucky made a subtle noise of surprise, because he remembered or because he was shocked Steve did not know. Their hearts hammered furiously, beat after beat of regret and realization and requests. Before his friend could speak again, Steve tilted his chin closer and touched their mouths together, testing, tasting. Bucky tasted like home, like Brooklyn but also battlefields.

 _Real,_ Bucky thought before he was consumed. Steve’s lips were the frenzied fervor of an event long overdue while simultaneously the gentlest caress. His hands did not move from his pockets even as Bucky braced himself with one arm on the table to try to shift closer. It was as if he was unsure. Bucky would have teased him, but his mouth was preoccupied with something far more satisfying.

When they finally separated, it was more of a necessity for oxygen than a desire to part. Bucky stared stupidly at Steve, who looked smug and uncertain all at once, with his shoulders pulled in and feet shuffling ever so slightly. So he kissed him again, and once more after that, whispering promises and platitudes between each adoring embrace. Too soon after Steve finally threaded his fingers through Bucky’s hair, the nurse cleared his throat kindly and informed them the chamber was ready.

“I’ll be here when you wake up,” Steve murmured against his lips. The words were his to hear and his to keep.

The Captain cradled Bucky’s face in his hands and looked at him with such unadulterated longing that Bucky was almost convinced to stay with him. Just to look at those eyes. To feel that mouth. To learn and know each other again would be the greatest gift he received from this cruel life.

“I’m counting on it.” He had to drag the sentence from his lungs. He slid off the table and over to the machine, not daring to look back at Steve until he was strapped in. His lips were still warm and wet.

Not even the ice could make him forget that.


End file.
